The Paiute Tribe is made up of three groups of Native Americans who originated in the Western US and speak Numic languages. The Northern Paiute inhabited the Great Basin, while the Southern Paiute occupied parts of Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. The Owens Valley Paiute is another group included in the Paiute tribe. The term Paiute has referred to different groups throughout history.
The Paiute Tribe comprises three different groups of Native Americans, all of whom originated in the Western United States. These groups, which are scattered across several states from Arizona to Idaho, include Northern Paiute, Southern Paiute, and the Owens Valley. Each of these individual groups may be included together as a single Paiute nation due to linguistic and cultural similarities, and each individual group speaks one of several Numic language variants. Some other groups, such as the Bannock and the Coso, speak similar languages and have sometimes been called the Paiute.
Throughout history, the term Paiute tribe has referred to different groups of people. Prior to outside interference from US settlers, the term Paiute may have referred only to a single band known as the Corn Creek Tribe from what is now southern Utah. The word Paiute itself can mean either true Ute or water Ute, depending on which word the prefix “pai” originated from. The many different groups that are known today as the Paiute can refer to themselves using a number of terms. People of the Northern Paiute tribe typically refer to themselves as Numa or Numu and the Southern Paiute tribe are called Nuwuvi.
The Northern Paiute originally inhabited the Great Basin, which runs from southern Oregon to eastern California and western Nevada. They consisted of numerous small groups of people and often referred to themselves based on their primary sources of food. One Paiute tribe that exists in the present day on the Walker River Reservation is the Agai-Dicutta Band of the Northern Paiute Nation, whose name can be translated as trout eaters.
Further south, various Paiute tribes historically occupied parts of Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. These groups are known collectively as the Southern Paiute Nation, and are related to the Northern Paiute through the use of similar Numic languages. As part of a series of acts aimed at forcing the assimilation of Native Americans, the various Southern Paiute tribes were forcibly disbanded in the 1950s. Some tribes later fought for federal recognition, which was granted some 30 years later.
Another group that is often included in the Paiute tribe is the Owens Valley Paiute. These people traditionally lived near the Owens River near what is now the California-Nevada border. They typically use the Mono language, which is a Numic language similar to those spoken by other Paiute peoples.
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